Europe is currently home to somewhere between 3.9 and 4.8 million illegal immigrants, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.
“Europe has experienced a high level of immigration in recent years, driving debate about how countries should deal with immigrants when it comes to social services, security issues, deportation policies and integration efforts,” Pew notes in its latest study of the question.

“Among these recently arrived immigrants are many who live in Europe without authorization,” the article adds. “Coupled with unauthorized immigrants who were already in Europe, their numbers reach into the millions, though together they make up a small share of Europe’s total population.”

Federica Mogherini is closing her term as the European Union’s foreign policy chief in much the same way that she kicked it off: by pandering to Israel.

Shortly after taking up her post in 2014, Mogherini paid a visit to Benjamin Netanyahu. She assured the Israeli prime minister that he could “count on the European Union” to build a “new start.”

Mogherini was vague about what the “new start” would entail. Nonetheless, she has brought some degree of innovation – though not in a positive sense – to international relations.

Under her leadership, the EU uses far weaker language than previously when alluding to grave breaches of human rights.

A 2018 Pew Survey found that 89% of Greeks found their culture to be superior to others, by far the highest amount of people in Europe where it reached as low as 26% in Sweden, 23% in Estonia and Belgium, and 20% in Spain. The Greeks are by far the oldest civilization on the European continent, giving them the moniker as the founders of Western civilization, and a slight arrogance at times over other Europeans.

However, it was this very ancient civilizational pride that Chinese President Xi Jinping capitalized on during his extremely productive visit to Greece this week where 16 agreements were made that firmly puts the Mediterranean country into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

More than 50,000 Polish nationalists paraded on the streets of Warsaw for this year's Independence March on Monday.

Tens of thousands of people, waving Polish flags, were young and old, of all walks of life, with whole families took to the streets.

Poland shifted towards nationalism when Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015.

PiS has asked citizens to abandon Western liberalism for patriotism and Roman Catholic values.

Attendees lit flares and marched through the streets chanting more slogans: "Not Islamic or secular, but Catholic Poland," "No to abortion," and "Great Poland is our goal."

A thirty-eight million nation in the heart of Europe (i.e., with a population approximately the size of Spain's) has been revolting against the EU establishment and its view of European unity based on cultural and religious indifference and anti-nationalism.

About 60,000 anti-Islam, anti-immigrant nationalists and fascists trooped through Warsaw on Saturday, marking Poland’s Independence Day in a striking display of right-wing strength.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned Netflix for inaccuracies in a documentary it debuted about World War II, Poland’s national press agency reported on Monday.

Mateusz sent a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings accusing the film The Devil Next Door of “obfuscating historical facts,” including showcasing maps that “falsely places several German Nazi concentration camps within modern-day Poland’s borders,” according to the Polish Press Agency:

Chinese President Xi Jinping is on an official visit in Athens Monday has signed 16 agreements in sectors including agriculture, energy, ports, and tourism aimed at increasing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in the European Union, reported Bloomberg.

President Xi met with political leaders in Athens Monday, after the Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited China last week.

Beijing is planning on significantly boosting Chinese investment in Greece, which could lay the groundwork for a new superhighway of trade between Europe and China.

In a largely unreported but hugely important story that played out this week in the Balkans, Washington is putting immense pressure on Serbia to shelve future plans for acquiring Russia's advanced S-400 air defense missile systems.

The controversy began Wednesday when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a public television broadcaster in an interview that he had a desire to purchase the S-400 but lacked the funding to do so, and at one point said "Serbia was ready to accept S-400s from Russia as a gift," according to TASS.

"You know, when you have such a weapon, no one would attack you. Neither US nor any other pilots fly where S-400s are operational: Israeli pilots do not fly either over Turkey or Syria, except for the Golan Heights. We have aviation, which the strongest than ever before. We will be strengthening the air defense with Pantsyr systems and other things, which are not on the sanctions list," Vucic said in the interview.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement about NATO’s “brain death” reflects the truth, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the symbols of the Cold War, Europe remains divided because it chose confrontation over a common future, Willy Wimmer, Germany’s former State Secretary for Defense believes.
Germany is marking 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall – a symbol of division, perhaps, not just for Germans but for all Europeans, who saw the continent split between the Western and the Soviet bloc. The wall’s destruction has since turned into a symbol of German reunification. Yet, Europe itself has failed to achieve the genuine unity that was a dream of the people who tore it down back on November 9, 1989.

In a largely unreported but hugely important story that played out this week in the Balkans, Washington is putting immense pressure on Serbia to shelve future plans for acquiring Russia's advanced S-400 air defense missile systems.

The controversy began Wednesday when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a public television broadcaster in an interview that he had a desire to purchase the S-400 but lacked the funding to do so, and at one point said "Serbia was ready to accept S-400s from Russia as a gift," according to TASS.

"You know, when you have such a weapon, no one would attack you. Neither US nor any other pilots fly where S-400s are operational: Israeli pilots do not fly either over Turkey or Syria, except for the Golan Heights. We have aviation, which the strongest than ever before. We will be strengthening the air defense with Pantsyr systems and other things, which are not on the sanctions list," Vucic said in the interview.

A criminal gang notorious for its brutality is gaining a foothold in major Swedish cities, police have warned. The drug-traffickers and people-smugglers from Nigeria are known for using “black magic” to coerce people into crime.

The ‘Black Axe’ – a group described as nothing but a ‘death cult’ that kills, kidnaps, resolves internal conflicts with machete fights and uses voodoo as an instrument of blackmail – has firmly established itself in Sweden and is now coming to the city of Uppsala in the latest concerning development, local police have said.

“Unfortunately, we see signs of that,” Jale Poljarevius, a local police spokesman told the Swedish SVT broadcaster. So far, it is mostly about drug trafficking and prostitution – yet, the “black magic” footprint of the gang is already clearly visible.

According to Leif Östling, former CEO of one of the world's leading truck manufacturers, immigration has spiralled out of control and has placed Sweden on the brink of “internal wars”, where military force may be needed to quell unrest in migrant areas.

In a lengthy interview with SwebbTV, the former Scania CEO has claimed that the arrival of new migrants poses severe integration problems and may have drastic repercussions for the Swedish economy and society as a whole.

“Now this is a simple question there, and it's because we've taken in far too many people from outside. And we did. Those who come from the Middle East and Africa live in a society that we left almost a hundred years ago”, Östling said.

On Monday, Brussels approved another deadline extension for the United Kingdom, giving the country time until 31 January 2020 to ratify the deal, negotiated by Boris Johnson, and leave the bloc.

Heated debates in London continue as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging the Parliament to hold early elections in December.

The head of the government tabled the motion on Monday, but MPs rejected the snap vote, with only 299 lawmakers supporting the bill, while it needed at least a two-thirds majority to be adopted. Now, Johnson is expected to introduce a short bill needing just a simple majority in order to hold the elections.

Peaceful masses waved flags, sang songs and chanted slogans, among them many youngsters, elderly people and families with children

But by the evening, radicals began massing outside police headquarters and started hurling objects at riot police

A project for Greater Albania – conspiracy or legitimate? According to a 2010 Gallup Balkan Monitor report, 83% of Albanians in Albania supported the idea of a Greater Albania, with 81% and 53% of Albanians in Kosovo and North Macedonia respectively supporting such an ambition.

The ultimate goal? To have Kosovo and the Preševo Valley in Serbia, southern Montenegro, Epirus in Greece and western North Macedonia into a single Greater Albanian state. Although this may not be official policy of the Albanian Republic, it is ingrained into the Albanian mythos. The very idea of a Greater Albania has roots in the 1913 Treaty of London that left roughly 40% of the Albanian population outside the newly established Albanian country. This has been something that the U.S. could weaponize against Russian influence in the Balkans.

Progressive billionaire George Soros believes that the global surge in nationalism - from Brexit to Trump - is an aberration, and that globalism will make a resurgence after the 2020 US election.

In a recent interview with the New York Times (in which he also endorsed Elizabeth Warren), the 89-year-old investor opined last week in a collection of essays called "In Defense of Open Society" that his brand of globalism - which he defines as an integrated, open society which abides by the law (which is easy to do when allied lawmakers are making them) - is out of favor. Instead, Trump's "America First" approach, debates over Brexit and trade wars have taken precedent.

Looking out a window with expansive views of Central Park, Mr. Soros spoke about China, Mr. Trump and who he thinks will face off against the president in next year’s election.

"The original Great Wall is a long brick structure that was built to keep northern barbarians out of China during ancient times," a new alarming report in Nikkei Asian Review detailing China's 'new Great Wall' rising in the heart of Europe recalls, but "The modern-day Great Wall in Europe is economic."

Beijing is waging an impressive influence campaign, complete with English-speaking news channels beamed across the Balkans, to "reach out to ex-Communist countries on the periphery of the EU," the report finds, as well as playing host to major China-East European economic summits in places like Dubrovnik, Croatia — site of a major annual conference last April, attended by no less than 17 European countries, including 12 members of the European Union.

And in other Balkan countries like Serbia, still reeling from the 1999 US-NATO bombing of Belgrade and later US-recognition of Kosovo independence, state-owned Chinese companies are active and on the rise.

The reported war games are being held a few months after the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between Russia and the US, which was prompted by Washington’s move to withdraw from the accord on 2 August.

NATO allies are holding secret military exercises in Germany, which aim to drill a nuclear war scenario, the German newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.

During the drills, codenamed “Steadfast Noon”, the military personnel utilise warplanes which could be equipped with nuclear weapons in the event of a war.

Central Barcelona has reportedly been paralyzed as mass protests which international reports estimate to number over a half-million people are driven by outrage at harsh prison sentences for pro-independence leaders handed down by the top Spanish court.

Protest leaders are vowing "the streets will be ours" as they push for Catalan independence, and as riot police have begun clashing with stone-throwing activists, who are also in some places of the city setting makeshift roadblocks ablaze.

With night fall, reporters on the ground are describing what's beginning to resemble a war zone, with increasing violence against police, as also both far-left and far-right agitators are said to be infiltrating the crowd and engaged in increasing violence and vandalism.

The turmoil began Monday after Spain’s Supreme Court handed out extreme prison sentences to nine politicians who spearheaded the referendum on Catalonia’s independence in 2017.

Following reports that several high-value ISIS prisoners and their families had escaped Kurdish detention facilities during the chaos that has dominated northeastern Syria over the past week, President Trump tweeted Friday afternoon that he had convinced several of his European partners to accept responsibility for ISIS members in the custody of Syria's Kurds.

Riot police charged at protesters outside Barcelona's airport today after the Supreme Court sentenced 12 prominent Catalan separatists to lengthy prison terms for their roles in a 2017 push for the wealthy Spanish region's independence.

Police used batons against the demonstrators who moved on El Prat airport after a call by the grassroots group Democratic Tsunami, which supports Catalan secession.

Activists fought pitched battles with police tonight at the taxi rank outside terminal one, with officers responding by firing foam bullets and using batons to disperse them.

In chaotic scenes, tourists were forced to get out of taxis hundreds of yards away and walk to the departures building.

Russian and the United States have used their veto power at the United Nations Security Council to vote down a European statement against Turkey's invasion of northern Syria.

The council held a closed meeting on Thursday to discuss Ankara's military incursion, which began on Wednesday despite widespread warnings by world leaders.

Moscow and Washington had their own reasons to veto the statement by five European members — France, Germany, Belgium, Britain and Poland — who had called the meeting to end the bilateral military action.

In a joint statement after the discussions, the European called on Ankara "to cease the unilateral military action," warning that the offensive threatens progress.

Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said his country would only support UNSC motions that address broader issues, including the presence of foreign forces in Syria.